Henry II (Fitz Empress) Curtmantle King of PLANTAGENET, ENGLAND HRH

                   King of England, 1154-1189. Also b. 25 MAR 1133.
Henry was the founder of the Plantagenet Dynasty. The long controversywith
Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, led to Becket's murder inthe
Cathedral.
His Queen, Eleanor, bore him three daughters and five sons, two ofwhom became
kings, Richard and John. Eleanor became estranged from Henry IIbecause of his
infidelity with Rosamund.
In 1170 she established her own Court at Poitiers. There she supportedher
sons Richard and John in their revolt against Henry and was,thereafter,
imprisoned by her husband for many years. She ultimately wassuccessful in
seeing that they (the two sons) became kings.
During Richard the Lionhearted's captivity while on the Third Crusade,it was
she who collected his ransom. A colorful, strong woman.
Sources include but are not limited to:
Ancestral File and the IGI, International Genealogical Index,both
resource systems developed and solely owned by The Church of JesusChrist of
Latter Day Saints.
Note:
Reigned as King of England 35 years (1154-1189)
Henry II
Henry II,
1133-89, king of England (1154-89), son of Matilda, queen of England, and Geoffrey IV, count of Anjou. He was the founder of the Angevin, or Plantagenet, line in England and one of the ablest and most remarkable of the English kings.
Restoration of Royal Authority
Henry's vast Continental domains (he ruled about half the area of present-day France) were to occupy him for much of his reign, but his first objective was to restore order and royal authority to an England ravaged by civil war. He did this (by razing unlicensed castles, reclaiming royal castles and alienated crown lands, and appointing capable crown officials) so effectively that the country was free of major disorder until 1173.
Henry's desire to restore royal authority to the level of that in Henry I's reign brought him into conflict with Thomas à Becket, whom he had made (1162) archbishop of Canterbury. The quarrel, which focused largely on the jurisdiction of the church courts, came to a head when Henry issued (1164) the Constitutions of Clarendon, defining the relationship between church and state, and it ended (1170) in Becket's murder, for which Henry was indirectly responsible. The crime aroused such indignation that Henry had to make his peace with the papacy in the Compromise of Avranches (1172). But, though he made some concessions, most clauses of the Constitutions remained in force.
Henry's most significant achievement lay in his development of the structure of royal justice. With the aid of such competent jurists as Ranulf de Glanvill, he clearly established the superiority of the royal courts over private, feudal jurisdictions. His justices toured the country, administering a strengthened criminal law and a revised land law, based on the doctrine of seisin (possession). Procedural advances included the greatly extended use of writs and juries.
While these developments were taking place, Henry was also engaged in consolidating his possessions. He recovered (1157) the northern counties of England from Scotland and undertook (1171-72) an expedition to Ireland, where he temporarily consolidated the conquests already made by Richard de Clare, 2d earl of Pembroke. He was less successful in his attempts (1157 and 1165) to extend his authority in Wales. Henry also expanded his holdings in France, acquiring Vexin, Brittany, and Toulouse.
His Rebellious Sons
In 1169 the king distributed among his three oldest sons the titles to his possessions: Henry was to receive Normandy, Maine, and Anjou (he was also crowned king of England in 1170); Richard (later Richard I), Aquitaine; and Geoffrey, Brittany. They did not receive actual authority, however, and, encouraged in their discontent by their mother and supported by Louis VII of France, they rebelled against Henry in 1173-74. The rebellion collapsed, but the king's sons continued to conspire against him. Richard and the youngest son, John, in alliance with Philip II of France, were actually in the course of another rebellion in 1189 when their father died. Since the young Henry had died (1183), Henry II was succeeded by Richard.
Note: Count of Maine and Anjou, 1151; 'Curt Mantle'; King Henry II of England, 1154; a warlike king; DNB. Buried at the Abbey of Fontevrault, which is between Saumur and Chinon in Anjou; nowadays it is called Fontevraud l'Abbaye.
Henry II was the first of three sons born to Matilda and
Geoffrey of Anjou on 4 March 1133.  Raised in his father's
dominion, he did not visit English shores until 1142.  At that
time England, split in a vicious civil war, was divided into
areas controlled by Matilda, the daughter of Henry I, and those
controlled by Stephen, grandson of William the Conqueror.  The
nine year old Henry returned quickly to the safety of Anjou.  In
1147, as a fourteen year old boy, Henry returned to England with
a small band of mercenaries to take up his mother's cause in the
civil war.  The excursion was against his mother's wishes and
better judgement.  When Henry found himself out of money,
Matilda refused to help him.  So, with the brashness that would
be Henry's trademark, he applied to his enemy, Stephen, for
help;  and with the characteristec lack of ruthlessnenn that
would be Stephen's undoing, he gave Henry the money to pay off
his mercenaries and go home.  By 1151 Henry was lord of Normandy
and Anjou.  The following year he married Eleanor of Aquitaine,
one of the most desirable women in Europe.  Eleanor was recently
devorced from Louis VII of France, after fourteen years of
marriage and failure to bear him a son.
Midwinter of 1152, Henry crossed the Channel and surprised
Stephen.  The English baarons were, by this time, convinced that
the only way to end the bitter war was to have Stephen  declare
Henry as his successor.  The death of Stephen's son, Eustace,
brought the end to Stephen's resistance.  The Treaty of
Westminster left Stephen on the throne, but declared Henry his
successor.  When Stephen died, less that a year later, Henry
ascended the throne unopposed.  Now, with a kingdom that
stretched from the Scottish borders ti the Pyrenees, he was the
greatest prince in Europe.  But his heart remained in Anjou, the
land of his father.
Throughout the first years of Henry's reign, his attention was
divided between England and Anjou.  He first set out to destroy
those lands and castle granted without royal license during
Stephen's reign.  He also reestablished overlordship of Scotland
and Wales which was a relationship lost during Stephen's reign.
His attention soon turned back to his homeland and an attempt to
establish overlordship of Toulouse, a region included in his
wife's inheritance.  However, the most significant (and
certainly most famous) story of HHenry's reign began in 1162.
That year Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury died.  This very
important clerical post was open for over a year, when in June
1162, Henry appointed Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury.
Becket at the time was Chancellor and well respected, but a very
good friend to the King, maybe too much so his critics claimed.
He was not known for his charity.  A story told by William
FitzStephen, a freind and biographer of Becket, illustrates not
only Becket's friendship with Henry, but his reputation as less
that charitable.  One day they were riding together through the
streets of London.  It was a hard winter and the king noticed an
old man coming towards them, poor and clad in a thin ragged
coat. 'Do you see that man?' said the king.  'Yes, I see him',
replied Becket.  'How poor he is, how frail, and how scantily
clad' said the king.  'Would it not be an act of charity to
give him a thick warm coat?' Ut would inded; and right that you
should attend to it my king.
But the world underestimated Thomas Becket.  Fully aware of
public opinion, Becket decided he would be a good Archbishop,
perhaps even a great one.  Some contemporaries claim he actually
had a conversion.  Whatever the reason, Becket went out of his
way to oppose the King.  It did not take Henry long to regret
his decision.  The issue that brought Henry and Becket to the
brink of their destinies was an old one - what to do with a
churchman that breaks the laws of England.  Like many layman,
Henry wanted criminnous clerks defrocked and tried by a lay
court.  Becket, of course, felt clerics should be tried in
ecclesiastical courts.  At Clarendon, Henry presented the
bishops of England, led by Archbishop Becket with a statement of
the King's customary rights over the church.  Becket argued for
two days, but finally, with the bishops in tow, bave in.  No
sooner was the ink dry, then Becket changed his mind.  In
desparation, Henry had Becket arrested on false charges, found
guilty and forced to forfeit all estates.  In despair, Becket
fled across the Channel.  For the next five years Becket
remained in exile and Henry concentrated on other matters.  He
conquered Brittany and overhauled the English legal system. (His
reforms were revolutionary.  The father of English common law,
Henry made innovations manifest today in the form of localized
and complex government.)  But in 1170, Becket returned to
England.  Tales of his outrageous behavior and continued
opposition to the King wasted no time in findingtheir way to
Henry in Normandy.  Will no-one rid me of the turbulent
priest? Henry alledgedly shouted.  True or not, Henry
undoubtedly did mumble some words of frustration, and in
response four of Henry's knights went looking for Becket.  They
found him at Canterbury Cathedral where Becket had gone to hear
evening vespers.  They first struck him with the flat of a
sword.  According to Wiliam FitzStephen, the warning, Fly, you
are a dead man, was shouted by one of the attackers, but Becket
resisted and was brutally murdered.
By all contemporary accounts, Henry appears to have been
horrified by the actions of his knights.  A friend of the king,
Arnulf, Bishop of Liseaux rote the following:
The king burst into loud lamentations and exchanged his royal
robes for sackcloth and ashes, behaving more like a friend than
the sovereign of the dead man.  At times he fell into a stupor,
after which he would again utter groans and cries louder and
more bitter than before.  For three whold days he remained shut
in his chamber and would take neither food nor admit anyone to
comfort him, until it seemed from the excess of his grief that
he had determined to contrive his own death.
While Henry mourned, the rest of Christendom was outraged.
Becket, canonized in record time, became a symbol of resistance
against oppressive authority.  Henry did penetence for his role
in Becket's death.  After the storm died down it became apparent
that despite the scandal, Henry was at the height of his power.
The real threat would come from his family.
Henry was plagued with rebellious sons.  Henry the Younger, the
oldest son, was actually crowned successor un 1169, but wanted
more than just a title.  Richard and John felt left out all
together, and spurred on by Eleanor, Henry's wife, launched one
plot after another.  However, the Young King Henry died in 1183,
leaving Richard the oldest surviving son, poised for succession.
But Henry's preference for John was obvious.  Richard, pushed to
the point of open rebellion, joined with Philip II of France in
an attempt to destroy the Angevin empire and Henry.  In July
1189, with his health failing, Henry accepted a humiating peace.
When given a list of names of those who had fought against him,
he was shocked to find John's name among them.  He turned his
face away and according to his chroniclers said, Enough; now
let things go as they may; I care no mor for myself or for the
world...Shame, shame on a conquered king.  A month later Henry
died.
See Note Page
Eric Delderfield:
Henry II was [really more of] a European ruler rather than an English king.  His empire stretched from the Solway almost to the Mediterranean, and from the Somme to the Pyrenees.  The size of Henry's inheritance was the result of two key marriages: his father's to Matilda,... and his own to the vivacious Eleanor of Aquitaine.  By the time he was crowned king at the age of twenty-one, Henry's wealth exceeded that of any other prince in Europe, even his nominal overlord, the king of France.  To his inheritance he added Ireland, a mission entrusted to him by Pope Adrian IV (Nicholas Brakespear, the only Englishman ever to be Pope [1154-9]).  Through diplomacy he forced Malcolm IV, the young king of Scotland, to return the counties of Westmoreland, Cumberland and Northumberland, which Stephen [the prior English king] had lost.
The general aim of his policy in England was to undo all the harm caused by Stephen's reign.  He triumphed brilliantly over the nobility, but he was, in turn, worsted by the church.  His first concern was to restore order.  Castles built by rebellious nobles were demolished, royal castles were resumed, along with Crown lands.  Henry was then able to plan for the future.  He raised new taxes (scutage, or shield money) from the landholders in lieu of their feudal military obligations.  The old feudal limit of forty days' military service was of little use to a monarch who might need to take troops to Gascony.  By a command of 1181 the basis of an English militia force was laid.  Henry now had two armies: the mercenary army, paid for by new taxes, and the militia; whilst his powerful subjects and their followers got less practice in the arts of war.  As a result, their attentions turned to the lands they held and the techniques of agriculture, which were developed most skillfully by Cistercian monks on their estates.  The stone castle gave way to the stone manor house, and the tournament became the only means for some to display their martial skills (Henry's son Geoffrey was killed at a tournament in Paris).
Royal justice was revived.  Judges from the King's courts were again sent into the shires, where they now combined with twelve local men to administer the law; in this way Henry laid the foundations of Common Law (a law applicable to the whole country, free of local customs), emanating from the Curia Regis, and of the modern English jury system. Gradually trial by judges, with the assistance of jurymen, replaced the barbarous trials by ordeal and trials by battle, in both criminal and civil cases. (For a trial by ordeal, the accused was made to plunge his head into boiling water or carry a piece of red-hot metal. His guilt or innocence was decided by the speed with which the wounds healed.)  The jury was not yet a group of 'outside' people brought in to hear and decide on a case, but witnesses to the fact. These reforms were not inspired by Henry's high-mindedness but because the courts were his chosen instrument for enforcing and extorting payment of revenues.  By the end of Henry's reign, the English had for the first time become accustomed to paying their taxes, to cooperating in government and to expecting fair play in the law courts.  His system was so fundamentally efficient that it continued to work even under the weak rulers that followed him.
But, unjustly, it is probably for his quarrel with Thomas Becket that Henry is chiefly remembered.  The Church of England was claiming more independence from lay control than Henry was prepared to allow.  He wished to retain the right to nominate his own appointees to vacant bishoprics and to try in his own courts clerks (a 'clerk' in the Middle Ages was anyone in orders, from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the humblest verger - about one in fifty in the population) who had committed a crime, for the Church courts (introduced by William I) had no power of life and death - a cleric could only be downgraded.  Any wrongdoer who could read a Latin text from the Bible passed the test of clerical status (the so-called 'neck verse'), and could claim 'benefit of clergy', or immunity from the State prosecution by instigating a system whereby a clerk accused of a felony would appear first in a lay court, then be tried by a Church court and, if found guilty, be brought back to the lay cour